873-pound pumpkin wins Ukiah weigh-off

Mike Brock's 873-pound pumpkin took first place at the 20th annual Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off, held Saturday in the Safeway parking lot on South State Street.

The top weight raises the bar after last year's winner, grown by Bennie England, weighed in at 756 pounds -- still far short of the record weight of 1,109 pounds, set in 2008 by Ben Fillmore.

"I got lucky," Brock said. "I didn't use fertilizer hardly at all -- only two times with fish emulsion. It was a good growing year. The warm nights helped a lot."

The squash should have been 123 pounds lighter, according to a chart Brock consulted that uses the pumpkin's circumference, side-to-side width and the measurement from its stem to its blossom.

His secret?

"There's no real secret," Brock said, and added that he's been building his soil with compost for 10 years. That and regular watering, burying the main stem so the wind doesn't twist and break it and regular trimming help a pumpkin add pounds.

The work literally paid off, with the grand prize being $1 per pound.

The last time Brock won was in 2011, when his 1,039-pounder upset fellow grower Ben Fillmore's six-year winning streak after Brock had last beaten him in 2004.

Fillmore had said at the 2010 weigh-off that he wasn't going to compete anymore, then took second place to Brock in 2011.

"Every year he says he's not going to grow a pumpkin, and then he starts one," said Fillmore's daughter, Shylee Fillmore. "It's his calling."

This year, Fillmore's pumpkin weighed 771 pounds and took second place. In third place was Fillmore's neighbor, Marvin Howard, who said Fillmore "talked him into it" for the first time this year and gave him a starter plant. With a little TLC and a lot of "horse manure," according to Howard, the plant produced a 654-pound pumpkin.

"And when I say I used (a combination of horse and cow manure), I used a lot, like probably 15 yards of manure covered with straw," Howard said.

He hasn't decided whether he'll enter the competition again next year. Howard's wife, Marie, said the main problem for her was the space the giant squash took up in her garden. This one grew on a 20-foot-by-30-foot plot.

"It was fun," Howard said.

Last year's winner, Bennie England, this year entered a pumpkin that weighed in at 389 pounds, putting him in sixth place.

The entries averaged between 100 and 200 pounds heavier than last year's winners, according to Maya Simerson, chairwoman of the PumpkinFest Committee.

The weigh-off also features a "greenie" category and a category for weirdest gourd.

The giant pumpkins will be on display at Safeway all week, and will lead the PumpkinFest parade Saturday at 10 a.m.

Tiffany Revelle can be reached at udjtr@ukiahdj.com, on Twitter @TiffanyRevelle or at 468-3523.